Creative Pedagogy, Art & Research
About Dr Clare Britt
Dr Clare Britt specialises in Early Childhood Education (birth to 8 years).
Qualifications:
- PhD, Charles Sturt University (2019)
- Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood Education), (First Class Honours), Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University (2002)
- Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts & Literature), University of Sydney (1997)
Dr Clare Britt specialises in Early Childhood Education (birth-8 years), with a focus on art in early childhood, and creative approaches to pedagogy. She is an author, teacher, researcher and consultant, and an Honorary Lecturer at Macquarie University.
Clare has experience in long day care, OOSH, preschool, primary school and university contexts. For many years, she was the Lecturer in Early Childhood/ Primary Creative Arts (Visual Arts) at the Institute of Early Childhood (now the Macquarie School of Education).
Clare regularly supports practicing teachers and educators in early childhood and primary school contexts through practical professional development in visual arts pedagogy. Her teaching is embedded in rich and meaningful theory/practice connections, with workshops guided by praxis-based learning, where participants actively engage in practical experiences in visual arts.
She also consults to early childhood organisations, primary schools and the gallery and museum sector, supporting them in fostering young children’s creativity and visual arts, facilitating arts-rich early learning programs, and working effectively with creative approaches to pedagogy (including pedagogical documentation, integrated curriculum, inquiry based learning).
Clare's research centres around young children's engagement with art, and creative approaches to pedagogy in early childhood settings, primary schools and art gallery/museum contexts.
Her current research is the Art & Wonder: Young Children and Contemporary Art research project, in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia, (MCA) exploring how very young children encounter contemporary art in a gallery space, and how rich pedagogy might emerge from these encounters. https://www.mca.com.au/learn/early-learning/research-project/
Dr Clare Britt is the author of Unearthing Why: Stories of Thinking and Learning with Children, co-authored with Jill MacLachlan, and Art & Wonder: Young Children and Contemporary Art, co-authored with Amanda Palmer. She has also written chapters for edited books. Her research is published in peer-reviewed journals and scholarly books, and she regularly presents at local and international conferences.